I picked up a link to a website that claims to test if your website is blocked by the Great Firewall of China.  Interestingly the results are as follows:This website appears to be blocked in Yunnan province - I assume that Wonderful Life is also blocked, but it throws an error.The Team Grumpy site and blog, the North Bucks Road Club site, and the Northwood Wheelers site are all freely accessible in China.  So it's great to know that the population of Yunnan province are free to read all about my cycling activities (except my time trial reports!).This all begs the question as to what activities I have perpetrated on Flies and Bikes have roused the ire of those in charge at Yunnan Province!

I don't often blog about political issues here, but I'm finding the illiberal and frankly unjust policies of the Tory government too much to bear at the moment.  And, yes, I regard this as a Tory government since their LibDem partners seem particularly passive.Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, has long desired to eliminate as many terminations of pregnancy as she possibly can.  She has repeatedly relied upon misinformation and untruth in her campaigns (see for example this, this, this, and this).  Her latest gambit is to file an amendment to the Health and Social Care bill due to be discussed in parliament next week.  This amendment seeks to require women seeking termination to receive 'advice' from a body distinct from the termination provider.This is couched in language that on the face of it seems reasonable.  But it's only in digging deeper that the serious flaws in the proposal become clear.  The advisory groups envisaged by Dorries are principally those with an anti-abortion agenda.  You can read more about the lies deceit and ignorance being spread by these groups in this Guardian article: Abortion: pregnancy counselling centres found wanting.  Naturally, those in favour of a woman's right to choose over her reproduction are up in arms over this amendment.  It would seem from a later Guardian article that the depths of duplicity in this amendment may have finally sunk in to Number 10: Downing Street forces U-turn on Nadine Dorries abortion proposals ( though see below: Dorries has claimed this is untrue).  In my view, this ghastly MP is not making these proposed amendments through any desire to help women, but rather through a deep-seated objection to terminations.  This is shared with Frank Field, an MP with a long history od such objections.I suspect Nadine Dorries is now feeling her PR advantage slipping away.  She's now been posting increasingly hysterical articles on her 'blog'.  Her blog, by the way, doesn't permit any commenting and in any case is 70% fiction according to her.  This is the latest, posted Wednesday, 31 August 2011 at 23:45 [Blog articles at blog.dorries.org have a habit of disappearing once the author realises her foot is well and truly planted in her mouth, so I pasted the text below.  Its current URL is this. Emphasis in bold is mine]

For those who have read this in the Guardianhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/31/downing-street-uturn-abortion-proposalsas has just been confirmed on Newsnight, Downing St has denied the story.If Downing Street were going to do anything, does anyone seriously think they would give it to the Guardian first?No, obviously, but Evan Harris would.The truth behind the story is probably slightly more menacing, more menacing even than Evan Harris.Bear in mind this amendment is to offer women the option of independent counselling, delivered not by the abortion provider, not by a religious organisation, but by one of the 80,000 BACP professional counsellors across the country who are prohibited at present from working with pregnant women.It’s just an offer, they don’t have to accept it, however, those who have doubts and need help may do and if they do, then so be it, surely it is their choice?Rumour has it that Evan Harris, abortion and assisted death zealot, is applying huge pressure to the office of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister. That would be the no longer an elected MP Evan Harris.  It would appear that he believes he has immense influence on Government policy, more influence than elected Liberal Democrat MPs even.I am led to believe that this story in the Guardian originated from him.I am quite sure that the office of the DPM would like to have a little more information about what the public thinks before it tried to apply pressure on No10 to put the brakes on an amendment which has such huge support amongst women. When I say women, I don’t include those who write for the Guardian, obviously. Nick Clegg may also like to hang fire awhile and see what else pops up in the papers over the next few days. I can assure him, it will be far more interesting than anything Evan Harris has to say./blockquote>Isn't this a bit strong?  And in any case, Dorries is economical with the truth when she says 'independent'.   She is also wrong to claim that abortion providers seek to make profit from terminations.  I note a blog article (Abortion Amendments to the Health & Social Care Bill) at the Conservative Women's Organisation blog concludes with this:

You still need two doctors to authorise a termination. Both of them weigh up the patient's decision and will only sign if they believe that she has come to the decision independently and has considered all other choices - they would be negligent if they didn't.Instead of making abortion physically and mentally harder for women in the UK, we should be looking at prevention and education - and by this I do not mean we need to teach graphic details to 13 year olds and give lessons with condoms and bananas. Parents need to take a bigger part in the education of their children and talking about sex appropriately when they're young is the best way to de-stigmatise it.The fact is that the health and welfare of women would be affected in a bill that doesn't mention termination once in its 420 pages.I urge every MP, woman or man, on whatever bench, to allow women to choose for themselves. I urge every constituent to contact your MP to get your voice heard.VOTE AGAINST the 3 amendments and do not allow the government to introduce any other comparable legislation.

As a final note, despite the appalling Dorries and her vile amendment, it's important not to lose sight of other issues around the bill as a whole.  Some commentators have observed that it may well lead to the complete breakup of the NHS.Update:  Despite Dorries' assertion that "as has just been confirmed on Newsnight, Downing St has denied the story", the BBC is reporting (David Cameron 'won't back abortion advice change') that

David Cameron "cannot support" an attempt by a Conservative MP to change the rules on the advice that can be offered to women seeking abortions.The PM's office said he was sympathetic to Nadine Dorries' view that women should be offered independent advice.But he was concerned the planned amendment to the Health Bill would prevent abortion providers like Marie Stopes from giving counselling as well

The escalating row over the News of the World phone hacking brings further revelations overnight (News of the World hacking row escalates).  Hopefully, News International's attempt to deflect all responsibility from Rebekah brooks to Andy Coulson will fail, and blame will fall appropriately.The breathtaking extent of the scandal is rather worrying: why did Surrey Police take no action over the Dowler family phone hacks?  Why did the Metropolitan Police appear to do their best efforts to sweep this whole sick story under the carpet at a time when it appeared to involve only 'Celebs'?A campaign for a public inquiry will be launched today - Hacked Off.  There's a petition calling for a public inquiry.Will this scandal prevent the UK Government from approving the takeover of BSkyB by the Murdoch empire, further extending the ownership of UK media?

After some parents were ticked off by social services for allowing their kids to ride their bikes to school, the Daily Telegraph has a Yes/No opinion piece (Should the Schonrock children be allowed to cycle to school alone?).  My sympathies lie with the Yes opinion writer.  It seems to me as a non-parent that kids are too looked-after these days.  Back when I was a kid, we used to roam off at weekends, get up to all sorts of scrapes, fall down hills and into gorse bushes, fall off bikes, fall into streams and the like (yes, I know it all sounds a bit Just William).  All part of growing up, discovering one's limitations and the like.Anna Maxted's 'No' argument begins with an explanation of the emotional response to an awful event happening to one's children:

Most parents are accustomed to that involuntary lurch of fear in their chest. It occurs when one of their children narrowly escapes death.In my case, it was the day on Hampstead Heath when I let the five-year-old push the baby along in his buggy. We heard screams and turned to see the buggy hurtling down a steep slope and smash violently into a metal fence. By great good fortune, the baby’s head missed the bars.Mr and Mrs Schonrock, of Dulwich, west London, are immune to such fears. They face the threat of being reported to social services for allowing their five-year-old son and his eight-year-old sister to cycle one mile to their private school every morning, alone.

Here's a report criticising recent Government pronouncements on DNA data retention (one of many to surface on the internet today) Public being misled over DNA benefits - Public Service.  In the runup to the UK elections, the main political parties are jostling for the right message - in this case, to be seen to be "tough on crime".Having been smacked down by our European protectors (at least where human rights and privacy are concerned), the Government still plan to keep DNA fingerprint data on unconvicted individuals for a considerable period.  Everyone collared for an offence has there DNA sampled and fingerprinted.  It's what happens to those data if said individual is not charged, or is found not guilty of the offence that's the issue here.  In Scotland, this is limited to 3 years.  In England, the Government proposes to hang on to these data for 12 years in cases where the individual was charged with a serious offence, or 6 years where the charge was of a less serious offence.Pause to think.  In both situations, the individual will have been found not guilty.  So the Government is effectively suggesting there are two degrees of innocence!  Someone found not guilty of rape is somehow less innocent that someone found not guilty of car theft.A further point is that the case being used to argue for long term DNA data retention does not in point of fact support the retention of DNA data from unconvicted individuals.  As the article points out:

Because Bowman's killer was arrested after a pub brawl, Labour has claimed he would have been much tougher to find under Tory proposals as his profile would have been deleted.But GeneWatch said the killer, Mark Dixie, was arrested after the murder. This means his DNA did not need to be retained for an indefinite period as it would have been checked against the database at the time of the arrest.It said there are "numerous other high profile cases cited by ministers" that also did not require the retention of innocents' DNA."Murders solved by keeping innocent people's DNA records are as elusive as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," said Dr Helen Wallace, GeneWatch's executive director. "If the government has a case to make why can't it produce the evidence?"

British Telecom's customer help forums appear to have moved from beta to a final version.  During the great Phorm Phiasco, when BT were planning to use the vile Phorm DPI system to illegally pry into their customers' internet usage, there was great censorship in the beta forums (BT Total Censorship).  I bailed out when I got my final warning from the mods for using the word "it" - to refer to matters that were forbidden, in this case Phorm/Webwise.  All very amusing.  So how do the new forums shape up? Not well.

We have threads being locked, and repressive conditions.  The whole edifice seems to be a kind of BT newthink where dissent is curtailed, and where moderators' responses differ as a discussion proceeds.  It's notable from the conditions, which explicitly state (and these are drawn from a banning email sent to one of the nodpi.org forum members who had posted there):

[..] Terms of Use, section 6.3 (g) which states: You must not upload, post, or otherwise transmit any content (including but not limited to text, links, communications, software, images, sounds, data, or other information) that includes any of the following inappropriate content: (g) Repetitive or continuous complaints about BT policy including allegations of abuse of privacy, use of third party suppliers or any other policy for any purpose. If you contravene these terms, this will be grounds for your access to the community to be suspended or revoked.

Ho hum business as usual, I think.  There's been a very interesting thread on new firmware that according to the OP allows BT access to the HomeHub, and is actually quite insecure.  Now, I'm not technically experienced enough to comment on the basis of the OP's complaint, but just read how the moderator's story changes as the thread proceeds, ending with an abrupt brush-off and locking the thread.

Finally, the BTCare home page has a twitter feed from @btcare.  A comparison of that twitter feed with the messages on btcare is very interesting.  Are they filtering out critical tweets?

I posted the other day about the new BTCare customer support forums ( BT and the heavy hand of censorship).  In the intervening few days, the leaden effects of BT censorship have become ever more evident, not least because of the actions of moderators, which has caused a number of the long-standing and helpful/knowledgable members.  Check these threads out:

How do I send a P.M., how private is it & are there any restrictions?

The Register reports that Mobile networks line up to bash net snooping plan. El Reg has used FoI requests to obtain information related to the public consultation on the UK Government's euphemistically named "Internet Modernisation Programme", under which all ISPs were expected to eavesdrop and record information about their clients' communications.  Criticism has been severe enough to stall development of this vile and intrusive plan until after the next election.  The Register reports that

The mobile operators variously attack IMP's technical feasibility, its legality, its impact on customer privacy and its opaque £2bn cost estimate. They also question the consultation's assertion that the ability to access records of all communications is essential for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to do their jobs.

The Conservatives, fired by the controversial arrest of their immigration spokeman within the House of Commons earlier this year appear to be somewhat exercised by the issue DNA sample retention by the police (Police policy on deletion of DNA records is shambles, say Conservatives | Politics | The Guardian).  The dear old UK Government appears to be fighting a rearguard action to evade the judgment from Europe that the retention of DNA samples and associated data on individuals who end up either not being charged or not being found guilty infringes human rights.

Freedom of information requests to police forces in England and Wales by the shadow immigration spokesman, Damian Green, reveal a huge disparity in the way records are treated. "The force most likely to remove your DNA profile is South Yorkshire, with 83% of requests granted," said Green. "However, of the total requests to 26
different forces, less than half were granted. Some forces, including Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire and Nottingham, refused to remove any profiles."

What's even more astonishing is the Government's belief that an individual arrested but not found guilty of a minor offence is in some way more innocent than an individual arrested but not found guilty of a serious offence.  As the Guardian reports:

The Register reports that the UK Government's much-vaunted and euphemistically named Internet Modernisation Programme (which of course represents State snooping on a vast scale) is going ahead as planned (Massive net surveillance programme on schedule).

This huge endeavour, which seeks to monitor and track all electronically mediated communications in a (probably vain) hope that patterns useful in crime detection may emerge was apparently begun in 2006, despite a consultation exercise that completely passed me by (I must have blinked at an inopportune moment). According the The Register:

The unelected Sith Lord Mandelson, who appears to have collared vast acres of political power in the UK via his all-encompassing ministry has his Digital Economy reports Ars Technica: UK "Pirate Finder General" law innocuous now, could get ugly.  This bill seems to fit the needs of big media rather than any form of human rights and justice.  Ars Technica reports:

The bill implements the Digital Britain report, which was completed earlier this year and attempted to chart a course forward for Britain in a high-tech world. It initially imposes two obligations on ISPs: they must forward warning letters from copyright holders to their subscribers, and they must maintain an anonymized list of the number of such warnings received by each subscriber. If a copyright holder asks, they must be shown the list, at which point the rightsholder can go to court and seek to uncover the names of the top offenders, and then sue them. There are no sanctions, but such sanctions could be coming. The government has written "reserve powers" into the law that can be deployed at a later date without needing Parliamentary approval.

Lord Mandelson, the unelected Minister in charge of a vast swathe of Government business via his roles as the current First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, President of the Board of Trade and Lord President of the Council, has been pretty vocal of late over what to do about illegal filesharers.  As one who presumably mingles with the dinosaurs of big media, he's keen to hit back at individuals seen to be stealing content from the big media.

His latest proposals seem to strike at the core of justice - to disconnect individuals accused of illegal downloading.  Presumably accused by big media?  Anyway, The Register reports (TalkTalk to fight net disconnection plan) that at least one ISP is preparing to put up a fight. 

This looks to be good.  As legal blogger Jack of Kent writes today (Libel Reform: Free Speech is not for Sale), two pressure groups, English Pen and Index on Censorship, have conducted a joint inquiry into English libel law - their report is now available on a new website:

The Libel Reform Campaign

So, we're in the midst of a major recession, the Government has spent huge amounts bailing out the fat cats of international banking, and Joe Public is tightening his or her belt.  The Higher Education Sector, in which I work, is certainly feeling the chill wind of cut-backs, and in my Institution's case this comes on top of the Goverment's ELQ policy.

So, one might have thought that costly and pointless exercises such as the dreadful ID card plan, and the even more despicable Interception Modernisation Programme might have been curtailed or dropped.  Not a bit of it.  Computer Weekly reports (Home Office trebles consultancy spend):

As part of its authoritarian stance on everything the public do, the UK Government has set its sights on controlling ingress and egress across our borders, via the notorious 53 Questions that travellers will need to supply answers to before being allowed to travel.  This whole e-Borders shenanigans is projected to cost the UK Border Agency £1.3bn over the next 10 years.  And with the responsibility for collecting the data falling on the transport companies (ferry companies and airlines for example), it it likely that the traveller will have to cough up for the system, at least in part.  And of course, there is th issue that this applies to travel from the UK mainland to the Isle of Wight, making passports a requirement for internal travel.

Here's a list of the 53 pieces of information they will demand from us (courtesy of the Daily Mail)

I've blogged before on the Great Australian Firewall - this being the plans of the Australian Government to take concepts of child protection to the extent of internet filtering to levels seen in (for example) China.  The whole process got rather murky with the release of the details of banned sites via Wikileaks.

Now, The Register reports (Great Australian Firewall to censor online games) that as one might predict the repertoire of websites deemed unsuitable will include those offering games rated as suitable for over-15s (because Australia doesn't have a game certificate for 18+). Colin Jacobs of Electronic Frontiers Australia is quotes as saying:

The UK Government's obsession with knowing what we've done, what we're doing, and what we're planning on doing is not only intrusive but borders on the dangerous.  The Daily Telegraph reports (ID cards: taxman allowed access to personal data) that tax official will have access to data held by the ID card system.

HM Revenue and Customs staff will be able to examine people's financial transactions on the scheme's database and search for evidence of undeclared earnings or bank accounts.

The BBC reports (DNA data plan comes under fire) that the Government's wholly inadequate response to the European Court of Human Rights ruling that retention of DNA profiles of individuals who have not been convicted of an offence is attracting considerable criticism.

In response to a number of commentators' objections to the Government's plans to continue to retain these data for up to 12 years,

Chris Williams of The Register certainly has been working hard, and this in a week that's absolutely stuffed with stories relating to Phorm's violation of internet privacy!  Today, he reports (Tory 'terror' affair shows danger of ubiquitous surveillance) on the circumstances surrounding the arrest a few months ago of Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green:

The "national security" justification offered by Jacqui Smith for the warrantless counter-terror police raid on a fellow member of Parliament's offices was trumped up by officials embarrassed by a series of leaks, we've now learned. The information about immigration failures fed to the Tories was politically damaging to the Labour government, but arguably in the public interest, and certainly no threat to national security.

We were promised consultation on the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) by early in 2009, but as far as I can see this hasn't happened yet.  Of course, in that time, we've seen considerable discussion of communication interception technologies (such as those devised and proposed by Phorm for commercial purposes) and the data retention directive emanating from the EC.

Now, The Register reports that developments in eavesdropping capacity are moving ahead (Spy chiefs size up net snoop gear):